DOHA: Qatar expects more than 5 million people to visit the Gulf country this year despite a post-World Cup lull, its tourism head said on Sunday.
Qatar Airways and Qatar Tourism chief Akbar Al-Baker admitted that hotels had fallen to a great extent after the World Cup final on December 19.
But he insisted that every World Cup (WC) host has the same lull after the event and that hotels were still 65-70% full.
Baker told a press conference that there were 1.16 million visitors in the 1st quarter of the current year and told a foreign news agency on the sidelines that he expected around 5 million over the year.
In 2019, before the pandemic, there were nearly 2.1 million tourists. By comparison, rival Dubai had over 14 million tourists last year.
Qatar spends billions of dollars
As part of a policy to end reliance on its natural gas wealth, Qatar has spent billions of dollars on infrastructure in the tourism industry and hosting big sports events.
The government has set a target of 6 million foreign visitors annually by 2030. Baker told AFP that they were not too far away from the target this year.
He added that due to the FIFA mega-event, Qatar built a huge infrastructure in the hospitality industry, and now it is its job to ensure that in the coming months, it is making sure that occupancy rates increase.
Qatar, which says there were 1.4 million tourists during the World Cup, is predicting foreign visitors will make up about one-third of the 3 million people who are likely to attend an international horticultural expo that runs from October 2 until March 28 2024.
